WSPC02443

• File Number: 8044
• Description: Section D General Studies-Compacts-general writings
• Date: 5/26/1942
• Title: Memo Furnished by Legal Advisor of State Dept on Use of International Streams
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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May 26, 1942

USE OF INTERNATIONAL STREAMS

There are given below some of the international agreements with respeot
to the use of rivers and lakes having an international aspect. It is by no
means oomprehensive but is believed to be sufficient to indioate the trend.
of thought conoerning the adjustment of questions relating to the equitable
distribution of the beneficial uses of such waters. No one of these agree-
ments adopts the early theory advanced by Attorney General Harmon of the
right of a state to appropriate all of the water, within its jurisdiotion,
of a stream whioh passes from its territory to a subjaoent state. On the
contrary, the rights of the subjacent state are speoifioally reoognized and
proteoted by these agreements. This is particularly demonstrated in the agree-
ment between Great Britain and Egypt with respect to the river Nile, wherein
not only existing uses in Egypt are reoognized but the right to further and
more extensive uses is taken into aocount. The arrangement conoluded between
those Governments has been referred to as exemplary in character and as fonning
a -valuable preoedent. Likewise, the oonvention between the United States and
Great Britain with respeot tl> the waters along the boundary between the United
States and Canada is important as showing the modern trend with reference to
the distribution of waters as between neighboring states, wherein the waters
of the St. Mary and Milk Rivers are divided equally between the United States
and Canada, notwithstanding the faot that most of the supply oomes from sources
within the United States md the oombined flow of the two rivers is insufficient
tl> meet all of the irrigation needs of the regions through which they pass.

The river Nile is used largely for irrigation purposes in the Sudan region
and in Egypt. It and the lakes and rivers emptying into it have formed the
subject of a.number of agreements between Great Britain and other oountries
designed tg prevent interference with benefioial uses of the waters throughout
their course to the Mediterranean. For example by a protocol between Great
Britain and Italy signed on April 15, 1891, delimiting spheres of influenoe
in East A.frica, the Italian Government agreed "not to construot on the Atbara,
in view of irrigation, any work whioh might sensibly modify its flow into the
Nile." Arl. III. 83 Br. and For. St. Paps. 19. 21,

Artiole III of the Treaty between the United Kingdom and Ethiopia,
signed May 15, 1902, reoi ted that the Emperor of Ethiopia engaged "not to
oonstruot, or allow to be oonstruoted, any work aoross the Blue Nile, Lake
Tsana.. or the Sobat whioh would arrest the flow of their waters into the
Nile exoept in agreement with His Britannic Majesty's Government and the
G~ernment of the Soudan." Treaty Series, No. 16, Cd. 1370.

By Artiole III of the. agreement signed on May. 9, 1906, by Great Britain
and the Independent State of the Congo, modifying the agreement of 1894 re-
. lating to the spheres of influence in east and central Africa,

"The Government of the Independent State of the
Congo undertake not to oonstruot, or allew to be oon-
structed, any work en or near the Semliki or Isango